By the time Spock had gotten to McCoy, he was exhausted. To perform a mind-meld, and particularly to perform it on a species so burdened by chaotic emotion, was a test of his patience and endurance. Spock understood that this grueling procedure, to meld with three humans in succession, was the most effective strategy available to the landing party. Spock's abilities were sufficient to convince all three men that the OK Corral and all the characters in it were illusions. From a logical standpoint the technique was indispensable, as it had been many times in the past made the difference between the success of a mission and its failure. But thinking less logically, as he secretly, occasionally did, Spock wished he'd never revealed this ability to anyone outside the Vulcan race. He was called upon to use it far too often, for purposes other than those few it was intended for. A mind-meld was so special, so intimate, and yet here he was tossing them about as easily as one would a mannerly nod or a courteous word. At this moment, as he stood before the doctor, he wished for the opportunity to perform a true, amenable, private meld with a willing, intimate partner. But he pushed this inappropriately-timed thought aside, the same way he might file away a document; he would perhaps take it out and examine it more deeply later on.

Spock had moved methodically from one man to the next; to rush the process would compromise the concentration he required to meld with these humans successfully. When he moved from Mr. Scott to the doctor, he knew he should not dwell on any aversion that the doctor might have to the meld. McCoy seemed determined to communicate this aversion, though to his credit he did it silently. McCoy wanted Spock to believe that his eyes were burning with rage, but Spock saw him for what he really was: paralyzed with fear. This was the one emotion that the doctor would always make an effort to conceal. He would conceal it behind any other emotion: anger, stoicism, even amusement.

For some reason Spock felt it would be acceptable - not efficient, not logical, but acceptable - to take an extra two point six seconds to attempt to comfort his comrade before he initiated the meld. He put his fingers to McCoy's temples, leaned forward, and whispered, "I am also afraid, doctor."

There was no time to linger in McCoy's mind. Spock followed the neural paths as best he could, tangled as they were in frivolous passions. He sought the network where McCoy's imagination met his perception of reality. Images invaded Spock's own mind's-eye: a patient, whom Spock recognized as a deceased crewman, rising from a biobed, proclaiming a miraculous recovery. A stretch of shore leave uninterrupted by an emergency. And then Spock caught a glimpse of himself, engaged in a sexual act with the doctor. It rushed past him like all the others, in an increment of time too small to measure. And, when he saw it, he felt a flinch, a recoil, as though the doctor had just seen what Spock had seen, and was attempting to snatch the thought back. Spock did not react to this, but went on his way. When he reached his destination, he began to incant: "The bullets are unreal. Without body. They are illusions, only shadows without substance. They will not pass through your body, for they do not exist."

Once the disconnect was complete, Spock's only concern, for the remainder of his time on Melkot, was the success of his endeavor. It was later, when the crew was safe and leaving the vicinity of the Melkotians, that Spock retired to his quarters to ponder what he had found. A mind-meld never left a clean break; in this case, it had placed the image as vividly in his own mind as it had been in McCoy's:

Spock was perched on McCoy's bunk, sitting on his heels, and the doctor was seated in his lap, his back to Spock's front, in a way that facilitated penetrative intercourse. They moved together in a rhythm that could only be coordinated so perfectly in one's own imagination. Two pairs of hands stroked McCoy's body, urging him toward a veritable erotic frenzy. In constructing this image, the doctor had focused on the flexing of the quadricep muscle group, and on the type of human perspiration that produces a bright sheen on the skin, rather than discernable droplets.

All this had been gleaned in an instant, and the snippet itself was contained in a three-point-one second span; Spock looped it in his mind, in order to study it further. He presumed that McCoy's experience as a life-scientist lent the details to this scene; their muscles flexed with reasonable anatomical accuracy, and the doctor's breathing was accelerated to match the strenuous nature of the activity. Spock's respiration was not accelerated, because he would not have found that level of activity strenuous.

For the first time, Spock saw himself through the doctor's eyes: powerful and erotic. A source of strength and pleasure.

Vulcans acknowledged that they were sexual beings, if only because so many of their elaborate rituals were rooted in sexual matters. Not only the rituals concerning marriage and birth, but also those concerning etiquette, costume, nutrition, and parental respect; all were designed to smother superfluous sexual urges. And nothing would require so much disguise if it were not so pervasive and tempting.

Spock, however, did not think of himself as having a significant sexual identity. He was aware that many of the beings he had encountered were attracted to him, but these were easily discounted, in his mind. Spock had observed that humans and humanoids tended to become enamored of aliens, attracted to exotic physiognomy for its own sake. That was not a practical basis for sexual or intellectual compatibility.

But this was where the fantasy puzzled Spock. Leonard McCoy was a Starfleet physician. Not only had he personally encountered hundreds of extraterrestrials, he had treated almost as many, often becoming intimately acquainted with their various physical forms (always, of course, in the capacity of a physician). It would not be logical to believe that McCoy was attracted to the novelty of Spock's physiognomy, especially since it deviated only eighteen percent from the human standard.

Spock continued to replay the fantasy while he considered other reasons why McCoy would have invented it. He ruled out physical strength: if that was what the doctor sought, there were many races stronger than Vulcans. He ruled out emotional or telepathic factors: a member of the Deltan race was more receptive to such involvement, and a more likely object of sexual fantasy. He also ruled out familiarity: with a crew of four hundred and twenty three, McCoy would not be forced to choose Spock based on the limits of physical proximity or acquaintanceship.

The most logical conclusion was that this fantasy was an aberration, short in length by virtue of its incidental nature. A mind as undisciplined as a human's was frequently bombarded by images of its own creation, which were by degrees meaningless, coincidental, or undesirable. Spock occasionally overheard crew members exclaim, "Thank you, I didn't need that picture in my head!" (He had deduced that the gratitude was expressed ironically.)

No doubt the doctor had been as baffled as Spock was now, by the notion of their being involved sexually. This decision was comforting to Spock. It eliminated the complexities which might have arisen otherwise.

***

This hour of the day was one that Spock typically set aside for meditation, but lately meditation had brought him troubling thoughts, so tonight he was delaying it by spending longer hours with his lyrette. His pet project, in the last few weeks, had been adapting lyrette compositions to make them more agreeable to the human ear. Humans could not hear all the notes produced by Vulcan instruments, and so the melodies often sounded harsh and dissonant to them. Adaptation of the compositions tended to be mathematical, and so this hobby was soothing to Spock. On his workstation screen was displayed an Orbifold, and he watched it carefully for sequences of notes which blinked too far from the center. These needed the most drastic adaptation. Sometimes it was enough to raise or lower the note two octaves, but not always, and Spock would need to use the Orbifold and his own knowledge of Terran musical composition to choose an appropriate note sequence.

Once Spock had completed his work on The Synchronous Movement of Two Stars, he considered beginning his meditation, but part of him still shied away. Perhaps he could examine just a stanza or two of another piece…

It was then that Spock realized that this path he was taking no longer served a purpose. He had taken up the lyrette project in order to distract him from meditative thoughts about Dr. McCoy. Now, the lyrette and the troubling thoughts had become closely associated, and so in this endeavor Spock had failed.

He now thought of his father, who in his mind was the archetype for the entire Vulcan race and their exacting standards of behavior and thought. Which would his father disapprove of more, he wondered: that Spock was so preoccupied with inappropriate thoughts, or that he was employing such floundering methods in an attempt to extinguish them?

The time had come to try a different path. Perhaps rather than spend his meditation period trying to rid the thoughts from his mind, he should confront them directly, even if it made him uncomfortable. Because it made him uncomfortable.

Spock stood up and gently placed the lyrette down on the chair where he had been seated. He ordered the lights off, so the only illumination in the room came from the firepot. Its flame was no larger than a candle's, but it had thoroughly dispersed the strong, earthy scent that was meant to soothe. In his bunk, Spock assumed the meditation pose, clasping his hands with the first two fingers steepled. He breathed deeply, found the energy of his mind, then the energy of his body, then the energy of his katra. Each of these he separated from the others. This was how meditative tasks were accomplished: breaking things down into their component parts and examining those that were afflicted.

In his first examination of the doctor's fantasy image, Spock had determined that the sequence had been a fluke, an aberration not indicative of the doctor's true feelings or desires. What Spock had not sensed, or not been willing to admit, was that the fantasy's deliberateness of detail suggested that it was not at all aberrant. Now, Spock decided, he must determine its true nature.

Spock knew that his friendship with the doctor had two levels, one spoken and displayed, the other unspoken and implicit. Since the doctor had made no overt declarations of desire, Spock began by separating the implicit aspect, and examining it, to confirm that he understood it.

Quickly he was overwhelmed by the complexity of possible explanations. Human expressions of feeling, explicit or implicit, covered a broad spectrum of straightforward declarations, coy hints, and reverse psychology. Too complex, Spock thought to himself. I shall begin on a more fundamental level than that.

He started again, with this dichotomy: The doctor either harbored desires for other males, or he did not. Spock was aware that McCoy had been married to a woman, but then again, flexible sexual orientation went in and out of fashion among Terrans, and so this fact was little help to him. McCoy had never paired off with another male that Spock had seen, but he had only served with the doctor for six-point-five percent of the doctor's life, not a comprehensive length of time. So, let us say he does harbor these desires, Spock thought, as that is the option I am concerned with. Would they be directed at me? On one hand, McCoy often spoke disparagingly of both Spock's physiological and psychological characteristics. But Spock had observed that humans often masked affection with humor or contempt. Spock, being half-human, had employed this technique himself, often with the doctor. Despite the occasional cutting remark, he did feel affection for McCoy…

And here he was, back again at the impasse of human idiosyncrasy. He did not know how the doctor could slog his way through so many medical and scientific quagmires when he was constantly bombarded by these emotional variables.

This problem only grew as Spock continued to grapple with it. He was reminded of a story Jim had once related to him, about a Sorcerer's apprentice. The apprentice had only narrowly escaped a hopeless catastrophe, brought about by his attempt to leap beyond the limits of his understanding and discipline. When he saw that he had created a small problem, he disassembled it in the only way he knew how, and it, in turn, rose up and multiplied itself.

The greatest challenge for Spock was to understand his own behavior. This was not the first time he had discovered that someone expressed sexual desire for him. In fact, it happened frequently, to his dismay: he spent much of his life in the company of humans, a race that found Vulcans exotic, and sexually attractive by virtue of their aloofness. Sometimes Spock was briefly concerned with these people, men or women, who desired him. Perhaps he was even curious. But ultimately he had always suppressed these feelings, which was the obvious course for him, and managed to work around this dynamic when in the presence of admirers.

So why was he so preoccupied now, with the doctor's fantasy? It may have been merely the unusual way that Spock had learned about it, or the fact that, of all the people who had desired him, McCoy was the closest to him, in a professional and a personal sense.

Inwardly, he cringed. Now Spock was thinking of McCoy that way, employing that assumption: the doctor desired him.

Spock was troubled, and if the situation remained static he suspected his thoughts would become inescapable. He decided to visit McCoy and have a discussion with him. Hopefully a clarification of the situation would put these difficulties behind him for good.

But first, he needed to do a little reading. There was another aspect of this situation, which Spock had not even begun to consider…